An end system multicast protocol for multi-party videoconferencing applications

Abstract

This thesis presents the design of an end system multicast protocol appropriate for multi-party videoconferencing applications. More specifically, the said protocol attempts to address the upload bandwidth limitations of current Internet connections to the home as well as the lack of ubiquitous infrastructure support for multicasting needed for many-to-many applications. After a study of the requirements of a particular class of many-to-many applications (mufti-party videoconferencing), the thesis includes the proposal, design, justification, implementation and evaluation of a novel end system multicast protocol targeting such applications that in comparison to existing systems and protocols will better deal with limitations of today's Internet connections to the home and improve their feasibility of deployment. The core of the thesis is formed by novel routing heuristics appropriate for multi-source outflow constrained overlay tree construction that significantly perform better than existing heuristics in fording solutions while taking into account priority and heterogeneous bit-rates for every source-receiver pair. Furthermore, the design and implementation of a 3D videoconferencing application with a novel visibility-based awareness mechanism provides a proof of concept application making use of our proposed end system multicast protocol.